Red Has a Heart and a Brain
Despite all the fanwork I do for Cyan and Lime, my favorites in the Among Us show are actually Red and Purple. It's just that they get the most content and therefore, I didn't feel the need to give much more unless I wanted to.
At least, that's until I realized that people didn't really get the characters. I'm not one to say one's interpretation of a piece of media is superior to someone elses because 'i said so', but there is still a character there. If there were no limitations on that rule, then suddenly a character becomes an OC, a hollow shell imitating the actual character. Sans and Edgeworth know this all too well.
Red is actually the biggest example I have of mischaracterization; while character traits are often exaggerated for memes or quick sketches, I've seen people truly think of Red as a spineless, desperate, incompetent loser who can't fathom the idea of being selfless until the very end of the show, and simply put; that just isn't true. Red is undeniably selfish and self-centered, but that selfishness forms in an interesting way.
Think about it. Red is the captain of the skeld, the person everyone can rely on. The hero if you will. Red is not conciously selfish; they are a strong example of a character being ignorantly selfish. Red truly believes, within their little world crafted by MIRA, that they are helping people. They're saving the crew, to the point of defending this point so adamently against Purple. Red desperately wants to keep their fantasy land going amongst the chaos, and in a way, the show itself, with its structure, enables this. Episodes 1-5 are all signficantly more comedic. It's only with Episode 6, with the death of Cyan and backstory reveal of Purple, that things become real. Red can't delude themselves anymore, and that's furthered by how they vote out Yellow as killer. That isn't an act of selfishness; from Red's perspective, it makes perfect sense that Yellow killed Cyan. They know they're not an imposter, Black proved they can't vent, so the only option is Yellow!
But it isn't Yellow. Red has to face the reality that their actions aren't 'herowork 101', they can be negative. They can hurt people. They gain their individuality in accepting their own flaws.
The primary theme of the show is Individual Vs Corporation, and Red is the primary example of that theme. Over the course of the show, they find out who they really are. It's stated early in the show that the title of 'captain' is the only thing that drives Red to do the things they do. They don't know who they are without it. To them, they've always been defined by someone else. Purple's friend, Green's mentor, but never simply just...Red. They are incapable of being themselves, because at their core, they don't know who they are.
What's deeply, and tragically irony, is that Red is someone who loves helping others. They become truly selfless by the end; by DnD terms, they go from a Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil to a Lawful Good. They value everyone else above themselves truly, and become the hero they were parading as before.
Red isn't selfish in every aspect of their life; they're ignorant. Negligent. But when their eyes, er, visor is opened, they become one of the most selfless people on board, because they truly do want to help others. They just need to get out of the 'relishing the glory' part of being a hero.